The URJC coordinates the Spanish strategy for promoting sport

Raul Garcia Hemonnet

The CIDE of the Rey Juan Carlos University, headed by its director, Professor Alfonso Jiménez, has been working for years and measuring the social impact of physical activity in different regional, national, and international contexts.

Thanks to this experience, the CSD chose this body and its director to coordinate the document that defines the 'National strategy to promote sport against sedentary lifestyle and physical inactivity 2025-2030', endowed with 87 million euros of funding, which was presented by the Government at the end of December.

For us, explains Alfonso Jiménez, this fact means three important things: “the main one would be that as a researcher you realise that what most influences the behaviour of societies are policies, something that has been seen with tobacco consumption in public spaces, for example.” Furthermore, points out Jiménez, the development of this strategy and our contribution to it “offers the possibility of a real transfer of knowledge.” And, finally, “it represents a recognition of the capacity of our research centre, since although we are quite small, we have already achieved a level of funding for projects exceeding 3 million. Our centre has the social impact of sport as one of its backbones.”

To carry out this project, Alfonso Jiménez has relied on the leading experts in Spain on the subject, such as Marcela Glez Gross (UPM), David Moscoso (UCO), Juan Antonio Moreno Murcia (UMH) and Ana Vallejo, among other specialists.

URJC researchers Xián Mayo and Inés Nieto have also participated in the development of the Strategy.

The document analyses the importance and impact of promoting an active lifestyle. Next, it analyses the legislative and regulatory framework of reference in the international context (which includes the contributions of the researchers from the Rey Juan Carlos University). Then, it defines the vision, mission and values. Finally, the document addresses in detail different strategic lines with their respective axes of intervention and specific actions.

These lines of intervention include a large number of measures. Some of them, Alfonso Jiménez points out, are: “the inclusion of a third weekly hour of Physical Education in schools and institutes or tax benefits for those companies that promote and facilitate the practice of sport and physical exercise for their employees.”

As the professor points out, “we wanted to create a document that all institutions could accept, a report with solid evidence that would allow for swift intervention.” “The current situation is alarming and urgent and we must acknowledge the current government for having taken on a series of challenges that had not been previously taken into account.”

According to the Strategy, physical inactivity in a society like the Spanish one reduces productivity, produces an exponential increase in the development of cardiometabolic diseases such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes, which increases health expenditure in the health system.

On the other hand, all mental illnesses (especially depression and anxiety) are mitigated by active exercise, in a country like Spain which, according to recent data, is the second European country in consumption of anxiolytics.

As Alfonso Jiménez points out, “the strategy has taken a sociological approach to the challenge. Physical inactivity is closely linked to social class (being lower the greater the risk of exclusion). The most affected groups are children, women and people with disabilities.”

Jiménez concludes that both he and the rest of the researchers hope that “in 2025 a specific action plan will materialize and that we will be part of that process and that this strategy will bear fruit in the following decade.”

An initiative in which the Rey Juan Carlos University has played a leading role, through CIDE.